Thursday, April 30, 2009

To help you design your own peptides, here is a generic peptide backbone. You can put whatever amino acid side chain you want on this peptide (see charts designed by Chemknits, they may need to be rotated to fit!).

Start the chart, working from the bottom up, right to left. (note that the first charted row is all in the main color) (Please notice the update. I have rotated the chart so you can make the cozy as shown in the picture versus knitting the mirror image. I managed to invert it correctly in my head as I made the cozy myself.)

(starting the decreases for the bottom - you may want to make the decreases faster or slower depending on your gauge.) K5, K2tog * repeat 6 times, K3 (39 sts)

k1 round even

K1 K2 tog (26 sts)

K1 round even

K2 tog across (13 sts)

K2 tog across, K1 (7 sts)

pull remaining stitches together. weave in loose ends.

You could incorporate any of the amino acid charts that I have published previously to create your own peptide chart. This particular amino acid sequence (HNAVS, aka His-Asn-Ala-Val-Ser) has no meaning other than it would fit on a beer cozy and I though these residues would be pretty. (Histidine happens to be my favorite amino acid, and I do have some affection for asparagines as well from my research.)

I did a BLAST (i.e. search all know protein sequences for this stretch of amino acids) this peptide sequence, the first non-hypothetical protein hit is a isopenicillin N epimerase, which is involved in penicillin biosynthesis. (For those of you who know what my research is about, this will be really funny!) Now, since there

Saturday, April 25, 2009

So I willhave a ton of extra wool ease yarn left over from my sampler afghan. I want my fast chunky blanket to have more color than cream, so I decided to try to dye this blend.

Now this yarn is a wool acrylic blend, so I thought that if only the wool got dyed, it could have an interesting effect. I thought that the wool content was as high as 40%, but it is actually only 20%. My concern grew as I found this website, and saw that with 5 packets of dye per ounce of yarn, they saw very little color effect in a wool-acrylic blend.

In my kitchen, the Lion's Brand Wool-Ease yarn soaked up the dye very easily. There is a whiteish halo on the yarn, which is likely the acrylic. I love the way it ended up!

General Protocol (Stove Top)

Soak yarn (about 1.5 ounces or 40 g) in water until it is wet

mix food coloring/KoolAid into 1-2 cups water

in a pot, pour the dye onto the yarn and add enough water so the yarn is just barely covered

Simmer for 30 minutes (a little past the time when the water is clear, I wanted the dye to be set really well.)

When I rinsed the yarn, very little dye came off. Wash with mild soap, and then hang to dry.

Kool-Aid Pink

2 packets Pink Lemonade Kool-Aid, 2 packets Cherry Kool-Aid

This looked a little like ground beef while it was simmering (it completely freaked my roommate out!)

Kool-Aid Grape-Grey

3 packets Grape Kool-Aid

I suppose that this must look purple when it is diluted to the drink, but the dye looked black... and the resulting color is very gray.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I will have a ton of left over Lion Brand Wool-Ease Yarn (from my sampler afghan), and I thought it would be fun to use up my stash in a remnant blanket. I would love to use 4-6 strands at once so this project would go quickly, and give me something warm to cuddle with and to remember various gifts that I've made over the years. So let the search begin!

At first glance, many of the projects that came up were only stockinette (Lion Brand has about a dozen on their website), but further searches revealed more interesting projects.

Hot Damn Afghan - There are no pictures, and it is sloppily written, but the three patterns listed here are simple enough. One has a drop stitch (which would make the project go even faster), and the other two have some combination that would be really simple to swatch and see if you like the results.

6-Hour Afghan - You will need to create a log-in, but the pattern is free, simple, stockinette. They have "multiple" big needle patterns, but they are stockinette with different colored yarns held together.

Evergreen Speed Stix Afghan - You will need to create a log-in, but the pattern is free. The picture is not the best at displaying the pattern, but from the name I'd gather that it will look like there are leaves of some kind going across it(?)

Textured Treasure Speed Stix Afghan - You will need to create a log-in, but the pattern is free. This textured afghan looks tiny, if not for it laying on a chair. This could be easily completed in an afternoon!

Champaign by Night Speed Stix - You will need to create a log-in, but the pattern is free. I do not know how to discribe this really, but it is like an offset rib.

Super Quick Afghan - You will need to create a log-in, but the pattern is free. This garter stitch afghan is used by holding strands of different colors together at different times. Use it for inspiration to consume your remnants!

4-hour Bias Baby Blanket - Get ready to knit and slip! (This is another Lion Brand pattern, but this one does not require a log-in.)

Big-Needle Knit Afghans (Hardcover) - Reviews complain of many pattern mistakes, but with 175 pages there are bound to be some good patterns in here. Not sure if they would be conducive to my 6 strand at a time, but it could be worth checking the library.

Five Big-Needle Afghans - You can see pictures for all 5 projects on the amazon website, they are pretty cute, but again, I think I'd rather design my own before purchasing a book.

I suppose that it makes sense for most of the patterns to be manufacturer driven since these projects are based on needles that are only made by some companies.

Friday, April 17, 2009

I constructed the Annemor #17 Glove Pattern from SELBUVOTTER: Biography of a Knitting Tradition by Terri Shea. Color work is easier than I thought, and these worked up quickly. I think that these will be a great gift for the upcoming year.

I knit these gloves on size 1 (2.5 mm) DPN with Palette fingering weight yarn from KnitPicks (MC - black, CC - cream), consumed about 50% of the yarn. I took the finished gloves and remaining yarn into work to weight them (my lab-mates thought this was hysterical!) Of the 100g total yarn that I started with (this is approximate, as I did not weigh the balls to start), I have 20.6g Cream and 28.4g black remaining. The gloves weigh 47.6 g. I ALMOST have enough yarn to make another pair of gloves, but I don't think that I'd risk it with just these two colors. I would use the black as a CC with another main color, though.

Friday, April 10, 2009

The first chapter is dedicated to the art of felting, tips for projects with a single color, cables, or fair isle (and other color work). There are then three main sections: Playing with texture, using color and exploring embellishments.

Taylor's book plays with font size on intro/summary pages, in a way that I find annoying and distracting, but there are some interesting patterns. This book could be nice for a beginning felter, as each pattern contains essential felting tips (i.e. you may need multiple cycles in the washer and that sizes of felted projects vary after felting.)

I bought this book for the Grazing Sheep Bag Pattern (Darn you KnitPicks for posting patterns on your website but making you buy the book to get them! At least I know someone who will like that bag very much!!)

My overall impression of the book is so-so. Some of the patterns are not that inventive, much more interesting ones can be found for free online. However, it does demonstrate a range of colored and textured projects, so while I may not make many of them for myself, I have a place to go for tips when I want to try felting something else.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

I just found out (thank you, Facebook!) that an old friend from high school is pregnant. I thought it would be a nice gesture, even thought we haven't spoken in a long time, to knit some items for her baby. While waiting for the hat yarn to arrive, I whipped up some baby booties (http://www.knittingonthenet.com/patterns/babybootscable.htm) with remnant Shine Sport Yarn from KnitPicks.

I made a few baby hats back in high school for teachers and family friends, so I wanted to do something different than just st st with a bobble on top. I selected this ripple eyelet knitting pattern to knit with worsted weight shine yarn from KnitPicks. I really like this cotton modal blend, it has more give than 100% cotton and is comfortable to work with.

I adapted the pattern to do the hat in the round so I would not need to sew up a seam at the end.

On odd rows, where it says Knit - pearl. On odd rows where it says pearl, knit.

Cast on 70 stitches (the pattern is a repeat of 10 sts).

During the pattern rows, only do the repeat part of the pattern (what is between the *'s)

For the decreases, place the Sl1, K2tog, PSSO's so they are in line with the pattern below. (Ex: for decrease row 1 - *K3, Sl1, K2tog, PSSO, K7* repeat from * across, etc).